Pastor Riker intoned. “Amen!” chorused his congregation. The interior of the church would have been stuffy with the windows closed, but opening them allowed insects to swarm in. Sticky curls of arsenic paper suspended above Diana’s head did little to reduce the annoyance. She noticed an audible hum as flies settled on a sticky spot on the back of a pew two rows in front of her. A pity no one had installed screens, she thought. Castine’s store had them in stock. They also sold palm leaf fans, but she’d not had the foresight to buy one. Not only would it have helped keep the bugs away, it might have dispelled some of the unpleasant odors rising around her. She recognized one smell as shoe blacking, far too liberally applied. Another, she suspected, was a mixture of ingredients designed to repel mosquitoes and other flying nuisances. Rubbed into the face and neck and hands, it did a good job of preventing bites and stings but the stink of oil and tar also forced the wearer’s friends to keep their distance.
